The embodiments of the present invention generally relate to lighting systems that are digitally controlled and to the lighting fixtures used therein, in particular multiparameter lighting fixtures having one or more image projection lighting parameters.
Lighting systems are typically formed by interconnecting, via a communications system, a plurality of lighting fixtures and providing for operator control of the plurality of lighting fixtures from a central controller. Such lighting systems may contain multiparameter lighting fixtures, which illustratively are lighting fixtures having two or more individually remotely adjustable parameters such as focus, color, image, position, or other light characteristics. Multiparameter lighting fixtures are widely used in the lighting industry because they facilitate significant reductions in overall lighting system size and permit dynamic changes to the final lighting effect. Applications and events in which multiparameter lighting fixtures are used to great advantage include showrooms, television lighting, stage lighting, architectural lighting, live concerts, and theme parks. Illustrative multi-parameter lighting devices are described in the product brochure entitled “The High End Systems Product Line 2001” and are available from High End Systems, Inc. of Austin, Tex.
A variety of different types of multiparameter lighting fixtures are available. One type of advanced multiparameter lighting fixture, which is referred to herein as an image projection lighting device (“IPLD”), uses a light valve or light valves to project images onto a stage or other projection surface. A light valve, which is also known as an image gate, is a device, such as a digital micro-mirror (“DMD”) or a liquid crystal display (“LCD”), that forms the image that is to be projected. Other types of light valves that may also be used are liquid crystal on silicone (LCOS) or microelectromechanical systems (MEMs). The light valve's pixels are electronically controlled to form an image by setting the pixels of the light valve to transmit or block light from the lamp of the IPLD.
U.S. patent application titled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING IMAGES WITH IMAGE PROJECTION LIGHTING DEVICES”, inventor Richard S. Belliveau, Ser. No. 10/206,162, filed on Jul. 26, 2002, incorporated by reference herein, describes a central controller incorporating an image editor for use with a plurality of image projection lighting devices.
In their common application, IPLDs are used to project their images upon a stage or other projection surface. Control of the IPLDs is affected by an operator using a central controller that may be located several hundred feet away from the projection surface. In a given application, there may be hundreds of IPLDs used to illuminate the projection surface, with each IPLD having many parameters that may be adjusted to create a scene.
Programming a show on a central controller for a plurality of IPLDs can be very time consuming for an operator. For example a show using thirty or more IPLDs may be constructed by an operator of a central controller of a hundred or more scenes. A scene is programmed by adjusting the many parameters of each of the IPLDs. For each IPLD pan, tilt, selectable image, image rotate, zoom, focus, color and effects may each need to be adjusted.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,057,958, issued May 2, 2000 to Hunt, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a pixel based gobo record control format for storing gobo images in the memory of a light fixture. The gobo images can be recalled and modified from commands sent by a control console. A pixel based gobo image is a gobo (or an image) created by a light valve like a video projection of sorts. A default gobo may have its characteristics modified by changing the characteristics of the matrix and hence, shifting that default gobo in different ways. The matrix operations, which are described, include scaling the gobo, rotation, iris, edge, strobe and dimmer. Hunt discloses, “Other matrix operations are possible. Each of these matrix operations takes the default gobo and does something to it.”
U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,868, issued Nov. 3, 1998 to Hutton, incorporated by reference herein, discloses storing video frames as cues locally in a lamp, and supplying them as directed to the image gate to produce animated and real-time imaging. A single frame can also be manipulated through processing to produce multiple variations. Alternatively, a video communication link can be employed to supply continuous video from a remote source.
One example of a prior art image projection lighting device is the Catalyst (trademarked) system available from High End Systems, Inc. of Austin, Tex., and is described in the Catalyst (trademarked) system brochure incorporated herein by reference. The Catalyst (trademarked) image projection lighting device incorporates a video projector with a moveable mirror system that directs the images projected by the projector onto the stage or projection surface. A personal computer is used as a server that provides the images to the projector for projection onto the stage or projection surface. An operator of a central controller sends command signals over a communication system to the Catalyst (trademark) server to control the selection of images contained at the server. The selected image is then sent by the server to be projected by the video projector. An operator of the central controller may also control various effects that can be applied to the selected image. For example, the Catalyst (trademark) server may modify the selected image by electronically rotating the orientation of the image before sending the image to the projector to be projected upon the projection surface. Some examples of the types of modifications to the selected image are image rotate, negative image, image strobe, image zoom, RGB (red, green, blue) control and wobble. The different types of modifications of the selected image used to produce the final projected images can be referred to as “effects”. An operator of the central controller can send effects commands to the Catalyst (trademarked) image server over the communication system to adjust or select the effects that modify the selected image to produce a final image that is projected onto the projection surface.
The images stored in the Catalyst (trademarked) sever are stored electronically in the memory of the server. When an image is selected by an operator of the central controller the central controller sends the appropriate command to the server to command the selected image to be projected by the video projector. The selected image at the server is mapped by a video graphics card and the pixel map can represent the state of the pixels of the light valves at the video projector and the projected image. The selected image applied to the pixel map can be varied by applying mathematical functions to the selected image. The mathematical functions can apply, for example offsets, inverts, and multiplication, to the selected image which results in the selected image being mapped to the pixel map in different ways. When a mathematical function is applied to the selected image to create an effect, a second image is created from the first selected image.
The first image may reside in the memory of the IPLD or the first image may be sent from a central controller over the communications system to be received by a communications port of the IPLD and then projected onto a projection surface. U.S. patent application titled “Method, apparatus and system for image projection lighting”, inventor Richard S. Belliveau, publication no. 20020093296, Ser. No. 10/090,926, filed on Mar. 4, 2002, incorporated by reference herein, describes communications systems that allow image content, such as in the form of digital data, to be transferred from a central controller to a plurality of IPLDs.
The effect that can be applied to the first image can form many different variations of the first image creating a second image. For example, the Catalyst (trademarked) server can apply a negative color effect to a first image that normally produces a white hexagonal image on a black background on the projection surface and the negative color effect applied will produce a black hexagonal image on a white background creating a second image from the first image. Since the first image is one of many images that are stored in the memory of the IPLD various effects applied to the first image are used to produce many image variations of the first image without the need to increase the memory capacity of the IPLD.
One effect used with prior art mechanical lights that do not comprise light valves is the liquid effect. A wheel of multicolored oils is imaged between a lamp and a focusing lens in a projector and rotated so that the oils create a liquid flowing motion that is projected onto a projection surface. One example of a liquid effect of the prior art is the Liquid Wheel (trademarked) manufactured by Optikinetics of Luton England.
Multicolored images projected by an IPLD of the prior art are usually comprised of three separate colored images. The three separate colored images are most often red, green and blue separate images.
The Catalyst (trademarked) image projection lighting device has the capability of modifying a first image by electronically zooming the first image. The operator of a central controller may enter a command into the central controller to apply a zoom effect to the first image that can be projected as a second image. The Catalyst (trademarked) server upon receiving the command applies the zoom effect to the first image. The first image is modified to be electronically zoomed by the Catalyst (trademarked) server as to cause an overall electronic magnification of the first image that creates a second image that can be projected onto the projection surface.
Another effect of the prior art that can be applied to a first image by the Catalyst (trademarked) server is a color gradient that alters the first image color by applying a color gradient to the first image to create a second image. It is also possible for an operator of the Catalyst system to choose a variable angular direction used to apply the color gradient to the first image. Varying the angular direction of a color gradient effect applied to the selected image is useful for varying the apparent color of the first image to create a second image however the first image proportions remain visibly unchanged in the second image as only the color of the image has been varied. The second image pixels remain mapped similarly as the fist image pixels except that the color intensity of the first image pixels has been varied by applying the color gradient. The Catalyst (trademark) server can also tile a first image so that a plurality several smaller images of the first image are created from the first image creating a tile effect. Each of the smaller image tiles of the second image remain the same color as the first image. If the color gradient effect is applied to the second image then the tiled images of the second image have their colors varied from a global standpoint since the gradient effect is not applied individually to the plurality of tiled images of the second image. When a color gradient effect is applied to the second tiled image the individual tiled images adjacent to each other can have substantially the same color. Since the gradient color effect is applied globally to the second image, the color gradient is not applied to each individual tiled image of the second image and the color gradient can bleed over the boundary of a tiled image resulting in a color outside of the line look. In the prior art it is also possible to superimpose a third additional colored image over the top of a tiled second image. The third color image can be called up from an image library in the server. The third colored image that can been superimposed onto the second tiled image can visually affect the color of the plurality of tiled images of the second image but the colors applied by superimposing the third colored image is again done globally not on individual tiles. The results can be disappointing as the third image color applied to the second image tiles can bleed over the boundary of a tile resulting in a color outside of the lines look.